


When You Thought I Was Asleep

by backtohogwarts



Series: Things You Said [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dante - Freeform, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, but also a softie, hannibal is a scary cannibal, no actual cannibalism in this one though, obnoxious and probably incorrect use of literary references, of the tooth rotting variety, sorry if that disappoints anyone, stupid romantic cannibal boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:37:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5391308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backtohogwarts/pseuds/backtohogwarts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes... I must confess myself afraid."</p><p>Inspired by a list of prompts I found on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Thought I Was Asleep

**Author's Note:**

> 12\. Things you said when you thought I was asleep.

Will has no idea of the time, nor is he sure whether this moment falls upon the last dregs of Wednesday night, or the first drops of Thursday morning.  He does know, however, that Hannibal is awake because, as opposed to his general policy of sleeping like a marble statue, he is occasionally shifting restlessly without pattern or repetition.  Will lies comfortably on his front with his arms folded beneath the pillow, and the feeling of Hannibal’s fingers tracing aimless patterns on his back. It takes him a long time, dipping in and out of dreamless sleep all the while, to figure out that there’s nothing aimless about the pattern.

It’s the same lines as the ones that make up the mark permanently burned into Hannibal’s back, Mason’s brand from their time at Muskrat Farm.

Hannibal shifts again, closer to him this time, and kisses the outside of his arm and then his shoulder. In only moments, but slowly, of course, never hurried, Hannibal shifts to press himself along the length of Will’s back.

“Sometimes… I must confess myself afraid,” Hannibal whispers against the skin of his back, and Will has to physically force himself not to shiver beneath his heated breath, suddenly fully awake but afraid that Hannibal will stop talking if he realizes that Will’s no longer asleep. “I have loved only one person in my life, and I ate her. I had to, to keep her with me after her barbaric murder, and to forgive her for making me love her as much as I did.  I have lived a life privileged in wealth and connections and beautiful lovers.  I believed myself to be content, and perhaps I was. But then… then, you.” He presses a deep kiss to the column of Will’s spine, directly between his shoulder blades. “I am afraid,” Hannibal says again, and the words sound so foreign on his tongue that they sound like they come from a language he has yet to study to fluency. “I wish to consume you,” he confesses, “In every imaginable way, and yet I have discovered my life to be wholly intolerable without your presence in it. I am enamored with your facets and your true self, with your wonderfully caustic wit and your impossible, obstinate insolence.” He feels Hannibal smile against his back, and his nose nuzzle briefly against the point at which his spine meets his ribs. “I am awash with the conflicting demands of, as you once put it, Before You, and After You.  I fear that the man I have lived all my decades as will overwhelm the one who sometimes dreams of dying at your hand, just to know that I’ll always belong to you, in every way a man can belong to another person, and that he’ll take your life.”

Despite Will’s best efforts, it’s impossible not to feel at least a little choked up at such a confession, especially coming from a man like Hannibal.  Hannibal kisses over his back and shoulders in a seemingly random pattern until finally, he shifts off of Will to lie beside him again, but only just.  He takes Will’s arm, and Will lets him reposition them both so that he lies comfortably beneath Will’s arm with their legs entangled.

Hannibal whispers to him, something in Italian that Will doesn’t understand a word of, but it sounds important to Hannibal; weighted with meaning, said in a tone that suggests Hannibal believes that even through (feigned) sleep and a definite language barrier, Will will understand what he’s saying.  In a way, maybe he does.  He understands that Hannibal loves him, and that he is wholly unused to such an alien feeling existing inside him.  Without opening his eyes, he shifts closer to Hannibal, holds him tighter.  He toys with the idea of opening his eyes and offering to talk about it, but decides against it. They will surely talk about it, but not right now when Will doesn’t know exactly what he would or even could say.

* * *

 

The following morning, whilst Hannibal is in the shower, Will rises from their bed and goes downstairs to the library having woken up knowing exactly what he wants to say to him. Whilst by no means anywhere near as much of an expert on ancient classical literature as Hannibal is, Will has heard him recite enough of it that he’s beginning to grow vaguely familiar with it – and after hearing Hannibal’s confession in the early hours of this morning, Will wishes to reassure him in a way that allows him to behave as though it never happened, should he wish to.  The perfect answer is also the one that Will knows – or at least _hopes_ – will reach Hannibal in a way that shall reach him most deeply.  He uses Hannibal’s tablet, sat in the center of his desk, to search out the passage he’s thinking of, and finds himself smiling when he knows he has remembered correctly. Perhaps the context won’t be correct, Will isn’t entirely sure he remembers what, exactly, the context of the lines even are, but the words are right.  They’re exactly what he wishes Hannibal to remember.

He goes to the shelf that houses _The Divine Comedy_ , and he pages through it until he finds what he’s looking far.  He daren’t leave the book open here, spine cracked for Hannibal to stumble across it, and God forbid he folds a page at the corner. Instead he takes a spare sheet of Hannibal’s drawing paper, still blank, and puts it between the pages. He sets the book down on the desk, beside the tablet, and hesitates a moment before reopening the book to the marked page and picking up Hannibal’s fountain pen.  He writes briefly, and waits a moment for the ink to dry before recapping the pen and closing the book, satisfied.

* * *

 

Later, whilst Will runs through the hills of Chania as he does most days of the week, Hannibal seeks the companionship of his books and stops immediately in the doorway at the sight of a book out of place.  He never leaves this room without it being returned to the state it was when he entered it unless he takes a book with him to the living room or the bedroom.  As he steps closer, he sees a sheet of loose drawing paper pressed between the pages, and he picks the book up with rising curiosity. It can only have been Will who put it there, after all.

He opens the book to lie over his hand, and in Will’s own hand he reads the words;

_When you cannot trust yourself, know that I trust you. When you have doubts, know that I’m sure – but never doubt the way I feel for you. (22-34)_

Such words are more than enough to catch his breath, and Hannibal withdraws the sheet of paper from the pages, careful not to crinkle either one.  He lays it flat on the desk and his eyes seek lines twenty two to thirty four, as requested.

_The mind which is created quick to love, is responsive to everything that is pleasing, soon as by pleasure it is awakened into activity. Your apprehensive faculty draws an impression from a real object, and unfolds it within you, so that it makes the mind turn thereto.  And if, being turned, it inclines towards it, that inclination is love; that is nature, which through pleasure is bound anew within you._

Slowly, Hannibal sinks down to perch at the edge of his desk, the book so very heavy in his hands.

 _When you cannot trust yourself, know that I trust you._ Those are the words Will had written for him, and above all, he had wished him to read those ancient words of Dante and feel connected to them in a way that he had never been before.

The only logical explanation for why Will should choose this morning of all days to ensure that he reads this passage, is that he was awake in the depths of last night when Hannibal poured his most intimate confession over Will’s skin.  He was awake, whilst Hannibal spoke of his love, and his fear, and his sister.  If he weren’t already sitting, the thought alone would almost be enough to make his knees buckle.

He reads Will’s note over and over again, unsure of how he should react upon Will’s return. He feels sure he cannot simply carry on as though nothing has happened though that would certainly be an easier option than knowing precisely how to raise the subject.  Unbidden, his eyes skim once again over the words _pleasure is bound anew within you_ , and he’s reminded of the beauty of such newness – the beauty of which he has been a fortunate and awed recipient from the moment he plunged into the unforgiving intensity of the Atlantic Ocean in the arms of the man he has loved for more than six years.

He thinks back over the words he’d bled into Will’s skin, and most of all he recalls speaking of his fear. To feel such a thing, such a flagrantly unnecessary emotion, is largely a source of irritation to him, but especially as it relates to his relationship with Will.  If he was content to be pulled from the bluffs with him, and truly, really and truly he was, whatever else could he possibly fear? If the fear stems from his lack of confidence in his own self-restraint then it it’s entirely misplaced indeed, because if there’s one thing Hannibal prides himself on, it’s his ability to control himself and any situation in which he finds himself.

He fears ruining or taking Will’s life?  A simple solution abounds: he shall not ruin or take Will’s life.  Will shan’t betray him again, he has total confidence in that, and therefore no reason shall exist for the end of Will’s life to be justified.

* * *

 

Will arrives home, perspiring from the Grecian heat and breathing hard from the exertion of his run, wondering if Hannibal has visited his library in Will’s absence. Whether or not, if he has, he’ll raise the subject or leave it be.  Enormous level of vulnerability not withstanding, Will does not expect the topic to be discarded entirely.  Hannibal is not the sort to leave fresh revelations unexamined, even if perhaps a consequence or many may arise.  Especially not then if the past is any indicator of the future.

He leaves his sneakers by the door (he knows better than to keep them on and walk them through Hannibal’s house) and heads into the kitchen in his socks.  He pours himself a large glass of water and drinks it down in several gulps.

“I never cease to be surprised by how many ways I can desire you, Will.” Hannibal says from behind him, his voice growing closer as he crosses the kitchen to wrap his arms around him from behind.

“Have you yet found a way in which you don’t desire me?” Will asks as he sets the glass into the sink.

“I have not.” Hannibal answers, “Daily I feel a stab of hunger for you, and find nourishment at the very sight of you.”

“You share a turn of phrase with Dante and Bedelia.” Will says with a crooked smile, and he feels Hannibal go tense at his back.

“I assure you, Bedelia and I shared nothing of such magnitude-”

“With me.” Will corrects, which does little to help initially either, “The last time I spoke with her before we left Baltimore, I asked her if you were in love with me, and she responded with those words.”

Will feels Hannibal press a lingering kiss to the crown of his head.  “You had to ask?”

“I sought certainty.” Will answers, “From someone who wished it less than I did.”

For an ageless moment, they are content to stand there in that same spot, wound in each other’s arms. Hannibal would be content to remain that way for a further age were it not for his recently renewed sense of conviction and self control.  Instead, he brushes his lips past Will’s ear and murmurs to him, “I trust you. And through your proffered trust, I can trust myself.”

“In future,” Will says, letting his hands slide along Hannibal’s forearms until his palms press to the back of Hannibal’s hands, and he can tangle their fingers together, “Wake me up when you need me.”

“It appears I don’t need to.” Hannibal answers, and Will smiles, wondering if he’s irritated or annoyed by the deception of feigned sleep.

“You were kissing my back. My curiosity was… aroused.”

“Only your curiosity?” Hannibal asks, his voice almost playful, his lips intimately close to the shell of Will’s ear. Will sighs with pleasure as Hannibal begins to trace kisses over the column of his neck, his eyes drifting closed. He does trust Hannibal, implicitly so, or he wouldn’t be here, but there’s something undeniably thrilling about having Hannibal’s mouth on him, teeth so close to his jugular. It’s like swimming in shark infested waters without a cage to protect you but instead some small weapon that might save you against one but wouldn’t do much at all against a shiver of them. The small weapon he has against Hannibal is one of Hannibal’s own making – that his compassion for Will, his need, his _love_ , outweighs his desire to kill and consume him.  For now, at least. And _that_ is where the greatest thrill lies – the reason that their life together will never be boring.

Every day they wake up could be the day that the balance shifts and Hannibal tries, again, to kill Will. Will would fight back, and one of them would end up dead.  The question – the endlessly intriguing part – is which one of them would it be? And what would happen to the one who survived, if one of them did?  There’s always the chance that they’d exchange enough blows to give the both of them mortal wounds, which would be the easier answer certainly though by far the least interesting one.

Will isn’t sure how he feels about it, only that he doesn’t ever wake up and find himself fighting the urge to put Hannibal down.  Only that he loves him, and that he likes their life together.  He would miss him, probably more even than he knows, were they separated again, the question is, to what extent?  Hannibal, will suspects, would unravel were he forced to live in the aftermath of having killed Will and taken his life after everything they’ve already been through. In the last six or so years that they’ve known one another, most of the bad decisions that Hannibal has made can be attributed to his feelings for Will in some way, whatever they’d happened to be in the moment of action.  Given that Hannibal had neither protested being pulled off of the cliff or seemed angry about it in the aftermath, and given how deep his own feelings run, Will knows how much Hannibal feels for him, and he knows that as someone so high on the psychopathic spectrum, that’s not something he’s used to in any sense of the word.

The thought – that Hannibal would, after everything, be lost and broken without him – dirties his smile in the most delicious way, and has him turning in Hannibal’s arms to capture his mouth with his own.


End file.
